Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to devices and methods for synthesizing metal oxide impregnated carbon nanotubes. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a chemical vapor deposition reactor and a method for synthesizing carbon nanotubes impregnated with metal oxide particles.
Description of the Related Art
The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, is neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present invention.
Impregnation of carbon nanotubes with metal or metal oxide nanoparticles may be performed by conventional methods, or by special techniques such as microwave assisted impregnation (See S. C. Motshekga, S. K. Pillai, S. Sinha Ray, K. Jalama, and R. W. M. Krause, “Recent Trends in the Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles Supported on Carbon Nanotubes and Their Applications,” J. Nanomater., vol. 2012, pp. 1-15, January 2012, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety). The conventional impregnation methods, such as electro-less deposition, physical evaporation, capillary action, physisorption, solid state reaction, colloidal chemistry, and radiolysis, involve various steps ranging from a strong acid treatment to ultra-sonication. Frequently, the reduction of metal salts takes hours or days and the size and shape of the metal or metal oxide nanoparticles cannot be controlled efficiently (See R. V. Hull, L. Li, Y. Xing, and C. C. Chusuei, “Pt Nanoparticle Binding on Functionalized Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes,” Chem. Mater., vol. 18, no. 7, pp. 1780-1788, April 2006. B. Xue, P. Chen, Q. Hong, J. Lin, and K. L. Tan, “Growth of Pd, Pt, Ag and Au nanoparticles on carbon nanotubes,” J. Mater. Chem., vol. 11, no. 9, pp. 2378-2381, January 2001. K. R. Reddy, K.-P. Lee, A. I. Gopalan, M. S. Kim, A. M. Showkat, and Y. C. Nho, “Synthesis of metal (Fe or Pd)/alloy (Fe—Pd)-nanoparticles-embedded multiwall carbon nanotube/sulfonated polyaniline composites by γ irradiation,” J. Polym. Sci. Part A Polym. Chem., vol. 44, no. 10, pp. 3355-3364, May 2006. C. Mao, D. J. Solis, B. D. Reiss, S. T. Kottmann, R. Y. Sweeney, A. Hayhurst, G. Georgiou, B. Iverson, and A. M. Belcher, “Virus-based toolkit for the directed synthesis of magnetic and semiconducting nanowires.,” Science, vol. 303, no. 5655, pp. 213-7, January 2004. W.-Q. Han and A. Zettl, “Coating Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes with Tin Oxide,” Nano Lett., vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 681-683, May 2003, each incorporated herein by reference in their entirety).
On the other hand, microwave assisted impregnation methods are widely used nowadays for chemical reactions and nano-material production, however, the methods are difficult to implement for impregnation of carbon nanotubes with metal or metal oxide nanoparticles (See W.-X. Chen, J. Y. Lee, and Z. Liu, “Preparation of Pt and PtRu nanoparticles supported on carbon nanotubes by microwave-assisted heating polyol process,” Mater. Lett., vol. 58, no. 25, pp. 3166-3169, October 2004. Q.-C. Xu, J.-D. Lin, J. Li, X.-Z. Fu, Y. Liang, and D.-W. Liao, “Microwave-assisted synthesis of MgO-CNTs supported ruthenium catalysts for ammonia synthesis,” Catal. Commun., vol. 8, no. 12, pp. 1881-1885, December 2007. M. Nuchter, B. Ondruschka, W. Bonrath, and A. Gum, “Microwave assisted synthesis—a critical technology overview,” Green Chem., vol. 6, no. 3, p. 128, March 2004, each incorporated herein by reference in their entirety). The difficulty lies in the fact that in order to transform a metal salt to a desired metal or a metal oxide compound, a microwave of a specific wavelength is required.
Thus, it is an object of the present disclosure to provide a chemical vapor deposition reactor and a method for synthesizing metal oxide impregnated carbon nanotubes that is less time consuming and easier to perform as compared to the conventional and microwave assisted impregnation methods.